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| Thread ID: 134643 | 2013-07-23 18:57:00 | Worn credit cards | tut (12033) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1349654 | 2013-07-23 18:57:00 | When you swipe a credit card and it doesn't activate what does wrapping a bit of plastic like a shopping bag do that often makes it work? | tut (12033) | ||
| 1349655 | 2013-07-23 19:06:00 | It makes it thicker. | pctek (84) | ||
| 1349656 | 2013-07-23 21:38:00 | As pctek said It forces the strip hard up against the reader. |
DeSade (984) | ||
| 1349657 | 2013-07-23 22:04:00 | mythbusted ?? Must be more to it than that paper or plastic wrapped AROUND the card will move it away from the reader . Dont see why making the card thicker helps, again you are putting something between the card & the reader head, that should make it worse ? |
1101 (13337) | ||
| 1349658 | 2013-07-23 22:07:00 | If it's too thin the card will wobble around in the slot and cause problems, the piece of paper stops that. At least that's my idea of what it does... |
pcuser42 (130) | ||
| 1349659 | 2013-07-23 22:08:00 | I was wondering if it puts the card more in the centre of the reader or slightly away from the heads or whatever reads the card. | tut (12033) | ||
| 1349660 | 2013-07-23 22:11:00 | &%$^& , now I'll be wondering about this all day. There seems to be some better answers here , suppressing 'noise' . I dont 100% buy their reasons either, moving the card further away wont help the s/n ratio , as both signal & noise will both be reduced the same amount . yanswersblog.com www.tdpri.com |
1101 (13337) | ||
| 1349661 | 2013-07-23 22:21:00 | My card is bent badly & warped , my old card was broken & superglued back together. Both never had issues, so the bent card hypothesis doesnt hold up Ive used the paper trick on customers cards at work, it still took many many many attempts. It may have been persistence, not the folded paper that got it to work. |
1101 (13337) | ||
| 1349662 | 2013-07-23 22:34:00 | Perhaps this is something we need to get the MythBusters onto? :D | pcuser42 (130) | ||
| 1349663 | 2013-07-23 23:27:00 | I don't understand it but during my 6 months in retail I used it a lot successfully so it certainly seems to work. Normally you swipe and fail 3-4 times then use the paper (unwanted receipts in my case) and swipe again, usually only once or twice and it works. Some cards require a lot of persistance though. Maybe it forces you to swipe more accurately because it's a tighter fit and has more resistance, but I agree in terms of magnetic fields there is no reason it should help. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
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